Tag Archives: Margins

Bringing manufacturing back to the US — and associated profitability

Posted on February 5, 2012 by aviyer2010

An Accenture report titled “Manufacturing’s Secret Shift” reports a survey that shows that 49 % of respondents faced delivery time issues and 46 % faced quality issues associated with outsourced manufacturing.  In addition, 73 % faced material cost increases and … Continue reading →

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Supply Chain Coordination issues – Book Publishers, Apple and Amazon

Posted on January 28, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in Bloombergbusinessweek (Jan 30,2012) describes the conflict between publishers and Amazon.com ebook pricing plans of $ 9.99, the publisher controlled pricing model for sales on Apple’s iPad (termed agency pricing), and the resulting threat to without sales on … Continue reading →

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Momentum Accounting and supply chain impact

Posted on January 17, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the Wall Street Journal (Sept 27, 2011) described a “momentum accounting” decision by Diamond Foods to pay walnut growers about 25 cents a pound or more. The company described it as an attempt to maintain profitability of … Continue reading →

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Solarthermal approach to store solar energy and supply chain impact

Posted on January 10, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Jan 4, 2012) describes solarthermal techonolgy- using  salt to store the heat generated from solar energy, with release of this heat to create electricity at a later time.The resulting heat can be used … Continue reading →

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Dynamic Pricing of taxicab fares and fairness

Posted on January 10, 2012 by aviyer2010

An article in the New York Times (Jan 9,2012)  describes taxi pricing at Uber, a company that charged $27 per mile at the start of New Year’s Eve and $135 per mile late night.  Prices were revealed at the wnd … Continue reading →

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Ad Free product cost and Supply Chain Impact

Posted on December 30, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article by Michael Schulder in CNN.com (Dec 29, 2011 http://www.cnn.com/2011/12/29/tech/gaming-gadgets/kindle-ads-schulder/index.html?hpt=hp_bn6) describes the choice between an ad free Kindle for $ 109 and one with ads for $ 79. Clearly Amazon is estimating the ad related revenues as $ 30 … Continue reading →

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Planning the impact of fog, snow and rain at UPS to prevent delivery delays

Posted on December 23, 2011 by aviyer2010

A Wall Street Journal article (Dec 23, 2011) describes the 120 million packages delivered by UPS in the week of Dec 25, with late shipments creating costs between $5 and $ 30. UPS claims that its monitoring of the weather … Continue reading →

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Turkey vs chicken supply chains in 2011

Posted on November 26, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the Wall Street Journal (Nov 22, 2011) describes the impact of demand volatility on chicken and turkey manufacturers. Turkey manufacturers are smaller and spread out, while chicken has a few large manufacturers. While chicken manufacturers expanded given … Continue reading →

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Apple’s supply chain strategy – more insights

Posted on November 7, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in bloombergbusinessweek (Nov 7,2011) describes Apple’s plans to invest $ 7.1 billion in its supply chain and commit $ 2.4 billion in prepayments to suppliers. It describes Apple’s decisions to buy such large volumes of high-end drills that … Continue reading →

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Amazon.com – the WalMart of the web ?

Posted on October 11, 2011 by aviyer2010

An article in the Economist (Oct 1, 2011) reports that Amazon.com’s are 11 % lower than other retailers with physical stores for 100 products selected randomly.  The prices at Amazon were even lower compared to store websites. Amazon.com’s low profit margin, scale, the … Continue reading →

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